The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [189]
Now Izabela looked down. Wokulski noticed this and was embarrassed again. ‘Why did you do it?’ she asked quietly, ‘why are you … persecuting us?’
It looked as though she was going to burst into tears. Wokulski lost all his self-control: ‘I persecute you?’ he exclaimed in an altered voice, ‘could you find a more faithful servant … a more devoted dog … than me? For two years I have thought of only one thing — how to remove every obstacle from your path.’
At this moment the door-bell rang. Izabela started. Wokulski fell silent.
Mikołaj opened the drawing-room door and said: ‘Mr Starski.’
At the same moment a man of medium height appeared on the threshold, graceful and slender, with a small moustache and an almost imperceptible bald spot. His expression was half merry, half mocking, and he at once exclaimed: ‘I am delighted to see you again, cousin!’
Izabela gave him her hand in silence: a warm flush covered her face and languor glowed in her eyes.
Wokulski retired to a side table. Izabela introduced the gentlemen: ‘Mr … Mr Wokulski … Mr Starski.’
Wokulski’s name was uttered in such a manner that Starski, after bowing, sat down a few paces away, turned sideways from him. In reply, Wokulski sat down at the small table by the wall and began looking at an album.
‘So you are back from China, cousin?’ Izabela asked.
‘From London — and I keep thinking I am still on board ship,’ Starski replied, in quite noticeably halting Polish.
Izabela began speaking English: ‘I expect you will be staying in this country for some time?’
‘That depends,’ Starski replied, also in English, ‘who’s that?’ he added, glancing at Wokulski.
‘My father’s agent. What does it depend upon?’
‘I think you have no need to ask, cousin,’ said the young man, with a smile, ‘it depends upon the generosity of my grandmother.’
‘Very nice! And I was expecting a compliment …’
‘Travellers don’t pay compliments, for they know that compliments discredit a man in the eyes of a woman in no matter what latitude.’
‘Did you make that discovery in China?’
‘In China and Japan, but mainly in Europe.’
‘And you expect to apply this principle in Poland, cousin?’
‘I’ll try and in your company, if you’ll allow me. For it seems we are to spend the summer together. Is it not so?’
‘That is what my aunt and father want, at least. However, it doesn’t amuse me to hear that you intend checking your ethnographical observations …’
‘That would be revenge on my part.’
‘Ah — it’s to be a battle, then?’ Izabela asked.
‘The paying off of old scores often leads to agreement.’
Wokulski was looking through the album with such attention that the veins stood out on his forehead.
‘But revenge doesn’t,’ Izabela replied.
‘Not revenge — but the recollection that I am your creditor, cousin.’
‘So I am to pay off old scores?’ Izabela smiled, ‘you have not been wasting your time on your travels, cousin.’
‘I prefer not to waste time on holidays,’ said Starski, looking significantly into her eyes.
‘That depends on the revenge.’ Izabela replied, and she blushed again.
‘The master is expecting you,’ said Mikołaj, appearing in the drawing-room door.
The conversation broke off. Wokulski put down the album, rose, bowed to Izabela and Starski, then slowly followed the butler.
‘Doesn’t that man understand English, then? Won’t he mind us not talking to him?’ asked Starski.
‘Oh no,’ Izabela replied.
‘So much the better: for I had the impression he did not care for our company.’
‘And he has left us,’ Izabela concluded carelessly.
‘Bring me my hat from the drawing-room,’ said Wokulski to Mikołaj, in the next room. Mikołaj brought the hat and took it to Tomasz’s bedroom. In the vestibule he heard Wokulski whispering ‘My God!’ and clutching his head with both hands.
When Wokulski entered Tomasz’s room, the doctors had gone. ‘Well now, just think,’ Mr Łęcki exclaimed, ‘what confounded bad luck! The doctors have forbidden me to go to Paris, and I am to go to the country instead, on pain of death. Upon my word, I don’t know where to take refuge from this heat. But it has affected you, you